The Structure of Scientific Thought

Aristotle and Worldview

I.  Science and Worldview

Claim:

Aristotle’s view of the aims and methods of science cannot be separated from the factual content of Aristotelian science. 

Aims- What are the values to be served by science? understand the essence – defining properties - of every natural kind.

Then you know the principles governing growth or motion.

Methods – appropriate for that goal

Scientific Claims – produced by the methods with the aim in mind.

A mutually reinforcing triangle.

A radical change in  content probably accompanied by a change in the methods and aims of science.

Claim:  Aristotelian science and its philosophy of aims and methods

Incorporated within a larger, all encompassing world view:

The science had to cohere with the over arching world view and reinforce it.

All encompassing world view:

1. A metaphysics -  “before physics”:  the principles that all more specific laws of nature must satisfy – principles that must assumed before one can even do science

   1. That nature is orderly

   2. Assumptions about the nature of that order e.g. quantitative?

   3. How many basic categories of things are allowed?

2. The relationship of man to the natural order

   - Governed by the same principles or different ones?

3. The place and origin of values – or a moral order in the big picture

II. Aristotle’s 4 causes

In the Aristotelian framework – an assumption is that every change – process of growth or motion – can be understood in terms of 4 causes.

Example:  an acorn falls from an oak, sprouts, becomes a sapling, then eventually a full grown oak.

This process understood in terms of 4 causes:

1. Material cause – the underlying matter that makes up the acorn

2. Formal cause – the “oaky” form or essence that imbues the matter can causes it to be an acorn and no other kind of thing.

   This formal cause guides the acorn in its growth and development.

3. Final Cause: The end point or purpose of the whole process – namely to become a full-grown oak.  The form or essence defines the final cause and guides the acorn in its development to reach this end point.

   • The purpose of an acorn is to become an oak.

   • Achieving its natural purpose is good for the acorn.

4. Efficient cause – what is responsible for the beginning of the process –what gets it going.  Here it would be the oak tree that produced the acorn.

Everything in nature has a purpose. The laws of nature guide every kind of thing towards achieving this purpose.

*Not necessarily a conscious purpose.  Doesn’t require intelligence in an Aristotelian scheme. 

III. Teleological Explanations

Explanations in terms of purpose or final end state are teleological explanations.

In the Aristotelian world view, natural process is goal directed.  The Behavior of every kind of thing can be understood in terms of a striving for the perfect end-state.

True for physics, biology, human behavior.

Today science has  eliminated teleological explanations from physics (newtonian revolution), and biology, and maybe psychology.

Replaced with mechanical causal explanations.

Example:

Why did the woman fall off the ladder?

T -  In order to get a few days off of work.

C -  Because the rung broke.

Why did the man buy ice cream?

T – In order to make his son happy.

C -  Nerves XYZ fired in his brain, causing his hand muscles to contract and grab the icecream, then nerve signals from the brain caused his leg muscles to ….

IV. Cosmology, Purpose, and the laws of physics

1. Five kinds of matter
2. Each has its own unique essence
3. The essence determines a natural resting place for its kind of matter, and provides the principle of motion for it: it moves in order to reach its natural resting place.

"The way things are supposed to be"

Center of the universe – earth

Circle of water

Circle of Air

Circle of fire

Crystalline sphere of the moon

Crystalline sphere for each planet

The dome of the stars

The Empyrium

V. Value incorporated in the order of nature –

Things of greater value are farther away from the center of the universe.

A "good" dog achieves its purpose. A good human lives in accord with the laws of reason.

In the 13^th century Christian Theology (theories of God and his relationship to the world and humanity) adapted itself to Aristotle and reinterpreted Aristotle in to its own language.